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The 18-Epochs of My Life (and counting)

I think of my life as divided into enumerated chunks that I call “Epochs”. These are periods of time primarily defined by where I was working or going to school. Since work/school takes up such a large portion of one’s life and tends to have similar or at least related experiences, this just feels natural and seems to make sense. Although I modify these from time-to-time, as they currently stand these periods range from as little as 10-months to as long as 9-years and I have recently entered the 18th-Epoch since my birth in 1953.

One thing that these artificial distinctions do is to make it easier to think about and record recollections and “memoirs” of my life, and my intention here is to write down some of these memories before time and (potentially) dementia rob me of them completely. I plan to make each Epoch a separate chapter. Of course, these are just personal recollections of my personal experiences – not great earth-shaking events. If you want to hear about world-changing historical watersheds, you can look at old TV-news footage. Also, as you should expect, as one gets older memory fades and people and events become cloudy. The early-epochs are especially vague, as anyone would have a hard time remembering specific situations from their own infancy. This is mostly about those little (at the time) things that stick in our head for some reason and shape our personality and perspectives of the world. In other words, this is a record of why I am the way that I am.

Out of curiosity I also highlighted some of these epochs as “Blue”, which are those times that were especially pleasant or good overall, and “Red”, which are those periods that were especially unpleasant or difficult (it is too early to tell this about the current 18th epoch). Altogether there is much more Blue (about 25 years total) than Red (about 3 years total) and I freely acknowledge that my life has generally been quite pleasant and comfortable, in spite of the fact that most people like to find excuses to feel sorry for themselves. As Joe Walsh said; “I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do; Life’s been good to me so far”.

As I am inspired and have the time I may make more entries later based on these divisions, but for now; this is the outline of “My Life” in 18-Epochs;

1- Pre-school; “M-N elementary” (10/1953-6/1960)

2- Private Catholic School (9/1960-6/1965; 2nd to 6th grade)

3- Jr. High-School (9/1965-6/1968; 7th to 9th grade)

4- High-School (9/1968-6/1971; 10th to 12th grade)

5- Penn State (9/1971-8/1974; 12-straight terms for BA in Philosophy)

6- The Graduate Year and The Malaise (9/1974-6/1976; Stayed in State College 9/74-6/75, and then unemployed at home 6/75-6/76)

7- Drexel University (6/1976-6/1977; Lived in University City, Philadelphia; Masters in Library Science)

8- First Job (6/1977-6/1978; unemployed at home, then PT at R&H for 6-months)